Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf told lawmakers Wednesday that now is the time to take a stand against opioid addiction, and he outlined his legislative priorities in the waning days of the fall legislative session.

In an address to a joint session of the state House and Senate, Wolf urged quick action on a package of legislation designed to combat opioid and heroin addiction. Some 3,500 Pennsylvanians lost their lives to addiction in 2015, Wolf said, noting that such a loss is like losing the population of Parkesburg, Freeland or Mifflinburg every year.

"The opioid epidemic did not start overnight, and we will not fix it overnight or even in this session," he told lawmakers. "But by acting on these bills, and by putting other ideas on the table, we can continue to stem the tide of opioid abuse. We can make progress for the families we have met, the parents who have cried on our shoulders."

Wolf's top priorities include passage of bills to require prescribers to check a prescription drug monitoring database every time they prescribe opioids and to limit opioid prescriptions to emergency room patients to seven days. Wolf has said, however, he does not know whether either provision can pass the Legislature.

The limitation on emergency prescriptions is a narrower version of what passed in Massachusetts, where lawmakers limited all doctors to a seven-day limit.

___

The governor's office has listed six concepts that he supports, most or all of which are already included in bills pending in the Legislature.

- Require prescribers to check the state's Prescription Drug Monitoring Database every time they prescribe opioids

- Limit the opioid quantities prescribed to emergency room patients to seven days

- Require the Department of Health to develop and publish a uniform voluntary non-opioid directive form, which could be used by a patient to deny or refuse the administration or prescribing of an opioid drug by a practitioner.